Within the last year the City of Santa Monica has lost its City Manager, Planning Director, Chief of Police, Superintendent of Schools, Public Information Officer, Director of The Resource Management Department and Finance Director. This is what might be called “a good start.”

Now that Santa Monica police chief James Butts has left for his new position in Los Angeles, they say “City Hall has no ifs, ands or Butts about it.”

Upon his arrival in January, new City Manager Lamont Ewell made hiring a new planning director his number one priority. That was accomplished this week with the selection of Eileen Fogarty. The process took seven months. At this rate one, wonders how long it will take to accomplish the City Manager’s low priorities?

The new planning director described her job as, “…to go in and listen, then start figuring out common themes of agreement and how to put together a blueprint people can live with and support.” What she didn’t say is that the “people” she was talking about are SMRR.

You can never be too thin or too rich, especially in Santa Monica, as is evidenced by Councilman Richard Bloom’s reference to the issue of independent expenditure campaigns as being the “100-pound guerilla” in the room.

The Activist Support Circle held it second annual Public Potluck Peace Picnic Sunday, August 20 in Palisades Park. The organization is an emotional support group for progressive activists designed to:

•  Provide tips on how to be permanently ill-groomed
•  Explore housing opportunities in Berkeley
•  Allow sixty-year olds to get in touch with their inner-college student self

Boaz Benmoshe and his wife Melanie Ann Smith have been charged with pimping, filing a false tax return, perjury, loan fraud and grand theft. I think this couple needs to call Dr. Laura.

In an effort to minimize the cost of processing the homeless in the criminal justice system, The Santa Monica Homeless Community Court (SMHCC) will begin operation in September. The court can encourage the homeless to move along the path of rehabilitation in exchange for avoiding jail time. SMHCC will in some ways resemble traditional courts, but with some distinct differences:

•  There will be valet parking for shopping carts
•  Talking to others in the court room will be prohibited, but talking to yourself will be OK
•  The judge will be attired in a terry cloth bath robe

The Police Department’s Homeless Liaisons Project (HELP) involves the police referring problem homeless persons to local social service agencies in an attempt to avoid making “being poor a crime.” Perhaps now instead of being prosecuted for a crime, an offender may be required to sit in the corner and write one hundred times “I love the Santa Monica City Council.”